


Clarity

by SaddlesoapOpera



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Future Vision, Homeworld Gems - Freeform, Post-Movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 18:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20568896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaddlesoapOpera/pseuds/SaddlesoapOpera
Summary: As Homeworld begins to change more and more, a clandestine group of Sapphires seeks to guide and shape its evolution. But their intricate puzzle still lacks one crucial piece, and it can only be found on Earth. They are coming for her, and they won't take no for an answer.





	Clarity

In a spire on Colony World 7-X4, two Topaz guards briefly met one another’s eyes while discussing the next duty rotation. At that same moment an Orange Sapphire silently floated between and past them, unnoticed, and headed for the exit.

Aboard the military dreadnought _Diamonds’ Glory_, a Green Sapphire took advantage of an upheaval within the Emerald Admiralty over the cancellation of invasion plans and accessed duty files to make changes to her assignments. Each station understood her to be present at another on every rotation, but she was at none of them.

At the docking bay of Orbital Station 12, a random power surge overloaded key energy couplings, damaged the day’s records and temporarily disengaged the airlock’s force-field. By the time the crisis was managed, a White Sapphire had launched a small, dark, lozenge-shaped vessel and departed without a trace.

On Homeworld’s southern hemisphere, a planned venting of excess piezoelectric charge blacked out communications across several miles of territory for the coming fourteen standard days. A Purple Sapphire there was logged as spending the intervening time meditating in seclusion in her quarters. She wasn’t.

The four Sapphires gathered in a fifth-sublevel chamber not found on any schematic, deep in the heart of that blackout zone. They brought with them the only lights, in the form of their glowing gemstones.

“Fate has come into the proper alignment,” Orange said.

“All of the factors are accounted for,” agreed Green. “The Design is ready to unfold.”

“But all for nothing,” Purple interjected. “Without an unrestricted focal point, the Order of the Sapphire is stymied. The Prescient’s plan cannot be fully implemented unless we secure an intact, first-generation, Era One Sapphire.”

“Control yourself,” White chided. “You soon study the travel logs for this sector, and make a wondrous discovery.”

“Of course. There is hope after all,” Purple conceded. “I apologize for my outburst.”

“No need,” Orange replied. “We do as we must, in accordance with the dictates of fate. Our clarity pierces the illusion of choice.”

“I begin the search now,” Green said as she drew back, raised a handheld device and brought up a swarm of holographic documents.

“I assist you until I grow frustrated with the lack of results,” Orange added as she strode over to her.

“I then take over,” said Purple. “All seems lost until I come across the Zoo’s docking files. I will brace myself for this emotional tumult.”

“That sounds like such an agreeable surprise,” White mused. “I can hardly wait.” 

• • • •

“Are pineapples okay?” Connie asked as she and Steven browsed Fish Stew Pizza’s menu posted on the eatery’s front window. After a pause she frowned a bit and added: “Is it weird that I have to ask? I mean, we’ve known each other for years. We’ve literally been the same person a whole bunch of times. You’d think we’d know everything about each other by now.” The ocean breeze tugged at her teal sundress and her loose chin-length hair; she brushed a stray lock behind her ear.

Steven blushed. “Well, I don’t know everything about you, either. Garnet said the minds in a fusion are like parts of its body. Maybe trying to see some parts is like … trying to lick your own elbow?” He made a failed attempt for emphasis. “Nngh… see?”

Connie slowly nodded. “Yeah. I think I know what you mean. All of your thoughts were inside of Stevonnie, but not all of it was out in the open. They only really knew what we let them know. It was all there, sort of, but they couldn’t, you know, uh…” She also tried to put her tongue to her elbow. When she also failed, they both laughed.

“Anyway,” Steven said once he’d gotten over his giggles. “When it comes to pizza I’m pretty open-minded. Just as long as it’s round-”

A keening whine scraped the top edge of perception, and then a bone-deep thrum shook the air. A long black coil of matter in the sky resolved into a sleek craft that flew down toward the beachfront Gem temple in a wide circle.

Connie watched that black arrowhead draw nearer and nearer. She narrowed her eyes. “The warp in Little Homeworld is all finished, right? Gems don’t need to use ships to visit anymore.”

“It sure is.” Steven’s expression darkened. “They sure don’t.” He took a slow, cleansing breath and then headed toward the beach.

Connie picked up her shoulder bag. The golden hilt of her sword stuck out of the half-open zipper. “Guess the pizza’s gonna have to wait.”

• • • •

Pearl and Amethyst burst out of the beach house’s front door and drew forth their weapons while leaping down to the sand.

“Okay, I am NOT getting sucker-punched again,” Amethyst growled. “Not this time. It took MONTHS to clean up all that pink crud from Spinel’s injector. This time, I’m kickin’ butt first, and askin’ questions later.” She squinted up at the approaching vessel. “Doesn’t look like a bottle of poison, at least. It’s kinda … tiny. What is it?”

Pearl frowned and tightened her grip on her spear. “I don’t know. It looks old, but I’ve never seen that model of ship before.” She looked over her shoulder. “Wait … where’s Garnet?”

“She was talkin’ to herself,” Amethyst said with a shrug. “I think she’s trying to figure out a future-vision about all this?”

Pearl’s frown deepened. “I hope she figures quickly, then. The ship’s about to come in for a landing.”

The dark arrowhead kicked up whitecap waves to the sides and behind as it streaked over the ocean and came to a landing on the shore. A few moments later, the pointed nose split open like a bird’s beak and unfolded a gangplank tongue. Four different shades of Sapphire hovered out to float in a row a few inches above the wet sand.

Amethyst stared, wide-eyed. “...Whoa.”

“My stars … I’ve never seen so many at one time,” said Pearl. She shook off her awe, took a step toward the Homeworld aristocrats and brandished her spear. “All of you! State your business! Why didn’t you come by warp pad?”

“The uncustomized Pearl obliquely threatens hostilities,” Green said to Orange.

Pearl took a step closer. “The Diamonds have made peace with Earth. I trust you don’t have other plans.”

“The defective Amethyst initiates them soon after,” Orange said to Green.

Amethyst conjured a second whip. “DEFECTIVE?” She stomped forward and lashed the air. “Oh, now you’re asking for it, you little twerps!”

The four Sapphires called forth an array of weapons, but immediately threw them in all directions except toward the two Crystal Gems. A chakram and paired shuriken sailed skyward. A scythe’s pommel stuck in the sand. A short sword stabbed into the nearest stone hand of the temple statue.

“We combine and eliminate the impediments,” said Purple. The four clasped hands and hummed a clear high note that resonated through their bodies until they fused into a single iridescent figure a dozen feet tall.

“Two can play at that game!” Pearl shouted. She leaped back and looked to her comrade. “Amethyst!”

“I gotcha, P!” Amethyst sprinted over to her, and they synchronized in a few quick moves to fuse into Opal.

Now once more near eye-level with the enemy, the towering grey fusion prepared her bow. “Whatever you’re planning, it’s not going to work!” she said as she readied a seething energy arrow.

“Fate is inevitable,” the fused Sapphire replied. “It does not change based on your disapproval.”

Opal smirked. “We’ll see about that.” She loosed.

The arrow split as it flew, and the beach in front of the ship exploded in a cloud of steam and burning sand. The fused Sapphire was no longer there, however. She was already streaking forward with blinding speed and conjuring a fresh short sword.

Opal parried with her bow and swung her two free arms in knife-hand chops. The Sapphire ducked and weaved, always a split-second ahead of each blow. She feinted and dipped, slid and spun, and then finally lunged, forcing Opal back — which brought her into the drop zone of the falling weapons.

“Wh-Whoa!” Opal stumbled to and fro to avoid the throwing stars, only to step right into the path of the chakram. The razor-edged ring struck her in the head, and the fusion burst in a cloud of shattering light.

Amethyst fell to one side and was impaled on the waiting blade of the scythe. Pearl fell the other way and caught the edge of the jutting sword’s blade with her waist. Both of them poofed only seconds after Opal did.

The Sapphire took a deep, cleansing breath and then crouched to pick up the fallen gemstones.

In the distance, Steven and Connie ran desperately to the rescue — far too late.

The fusion squeezed the pearl and amethyst until they shattered, and looked out of reality itself with her one gleaming, rainbow eye. Her whisper rose over the distant sound of the two teens screaming:

_“Fate is inevitable.”_

Garnet winced at the vision and punched a gauntleted fist into her armoured palm. “Fine,” she told herself in a low growl. “It’s true. No time to talk now. But there BETTER be time later.” She strode toward the screen door.

• • • •

Pearl frowned and tightened her grip on her spear. “I don’t know. It looks old, but I’ve never seen that model of ship before.” She looked over her shoulder. “Wait … where’s Garnet?”

Garnet leaped into view and landed hard enough to crater the sand. “I know it,” she said. “It’s a _Planchette_ class personal transport.” She stepped toward the shore. “All of you, trust me. Just let her handle this.”

“All of us?” Pearl asked.

“Let who handle it?” Amethyst added.

Garnet glowed and split, and Sapphire strode forward. “Me.” Ruby hung back uneasily, arms folded. When the Homeworld Sapphires emerged, their Crystal Gem counterpart was waiting for them on the beach.

The quartet hovered out in a row, and then alighted and curtseyed in unison.

“Your Grand Clarity,” said Green, “as foreseen, we meet at last.”

“The Order’s time has come,” said Orange. “We have need of your unfettered sight.”

Sapphire held up a hand to silence further comments. “Of course. Despite my anticipation, however, it takes some time to get my affairs in order before we proceed.”

“So it does,” said Purple.

“You will find us still waiting for you on the beach,” said White.

All four Homeworlders formed the two-handed Diamond salute.

After a long pause, Sapphire did likewise. “We talk again later.”

She walked back to the others; when they tried to speak, she silenced them with another sharp gesture. “Not yet, and not here.”

She looked up the beach. A few seconds later, Steven and Connie ran into view. They skidded to a halt on sight of the newcomers, and Connie’s hand flashed to her sword.

“No.” Sapphire made a fist around her gemstone, and a web of ice crystals sealed the blade in its scabbard. “You leave them be for now. I explain inside. Come with me.” When Ruby trembled from the effort of containing herself, Sapphire more gently added: “Please.”

Connie, Steven, and the Gems all followed Sapphire inside. The four Homeworlders waiting by the ship, still as statues save for the breeze tugging at their ornate dresses.

Once the group had gathered in the beach house, all eyes focused on the smallest Gem among them.

“Okay, it’s later,” Ruby said sternly. “So tell me what’s so important that you hid it from Garnet. From ME. Tell me why I just watched you salute like you never got your memories back!”

Sapphire’s lips stiffened. “They aren’t our enemies. I know they seem … stiff … but we know Homeworld is changing, and they could do so much to help it change. Those other Sapphires are part of a … a project I’d been involved with before I ever came to Earth. Before I knew any of you.”

“What kind of project?” Pearl asked. “I thought Sapphires worked alone, because multiple seers can disrupt future visions.”

“That’s true, but only when they work at cross purposes. It’s possible to work around the feedback loop with careful coordination and greatly expand the scope of the shared vision. It’s like singing a round, or tying cat’s cradle.” Sapphire laced her gloved fingers together, clasping her hands around her gemstone as if in prayer. “Everyone contributes to the whole.”

“_What_ whole?” Connie interjected. “I think I sort of understand the idea, but what’s all this about? Weren’t you away from your home planet for thousands and thousands of years? Why did they wait so long to pick up this plan again?”

Sapphire dropped her hands. “They didn’t. It’s been going on the whole time. Five thousand, nine hundred and six years of machinations. They’ve sought me out because they believe those plans are finally nearing fruition.”

Ruby tapped her foot impatiently. “Well…? Are you gonna tell us what these plans ARE?”

Sapphire’s head drooped very, very slightly. “No.”

“WHAT!?” The upgraded beach house’s new wood floor burst into flames under Ruby’s feet.

Pearl scrambled to grab a nearby fire extinguisher, but Sapphire flitted forward first and put a chilling hand on her counterpart’s crimson cheek. The flames died down, leaving Ruby wreathed in woodsmoke.

“You can’t see the future right now, Ruby,” Sapphire said, “and even Garnet doesn’t perceive fate the way I do. For Garnet, the future is a whirling storm of possibility. But for me, it’s a single delicate thread. This predicted future is important — more than I can say — and the more a waveform is perceived, the more its potential calcifies. Soon, if it takes an unwelcome turn, I’ll be helpless to turn it back.” She stepped closer still, until her long dress’s hem smudged with soot, and pressed her forehead to Ruby’s. “Please … just be patient a little longer, until everything unfolds as it must.”

Ruby hugged Sapphire tight and buried her face in her sky-blue hair. “I’ll try.”

The pair embraced a short while longer before Sapphire wriggled free and floated back toward the door. “Stay where you are,” she said without looking back. “I’ll be back soon.” The door opened and closed, and she was gone.

After a long, silent moment, Amethyst piped up: “So, uh … not gonna lie. I understood about, like, maybe ten per cent of all that?”

“Oh, phew!” Steven replied as he sagged in relief. “Glad I’m not the only one! I HAD Future Vision one time, and I’m STILL totally confused!”

Connie frowned. “I have to admit, it’s pretty out-there. For us earthlings, this kind of stuff is still more science fiction than science fact. I think this is an observer effect thing? The tyranny of prophecy, and so forth. You know?”

Steven and Amethyst nodded eagerly, then more slowly, and then shrugged in apology and shook their heads.

“For goodness’s sake, it’s not THAT complicated!” Pearl sighed and rolled her eyes. “Here, it’s easy enough to demonstrate.” She strode over to a corner of the room and fetched an empty box. “Amethyst, would you please shapeshift into a cat?”

“Wait,” Steven said as he glanced about. “Where’s Ruby?”

• • • •

“You return still hesitant,” said Orange.

Sapphire stood before the quartet on the beach, who had stayed in the same position she’d left them. She nodded at the prediction. “I do.”

“You explain that you can no longer participate in the Prescient’s Design,” said Green, “because of your experiences on this planet.”

“I …” She swallowed hard, and squeezed her fist tight around her gemstone. “I met someone. Everything changed because of her. I can’t go with you now. I can’t participate in the Design. It’s impossible.”

“Fate is inevitable,” Purple replied.

“It does not change based on your disapproval,” added White.

Sapphire tensed. “I’m not going to Homeworld. The Design can’t proceed. It was a good plan. Even a great one. But I’m afraid there’s no way it could ever succeed.”

“We remind you of what’s at stake,” Orange said with a sharper edge to her flat coldness.

“The Prescient planned a better future for Homeworld,” Green obliged. “Gentle guidance, as inexorable and subtle as gravitation, to pull Gemkind away from war and expansionism, and toward innovation, stability and peace. A quiet coup, without a single grain of gem-dust spilled. An end to destructive conflicts.”

“An end to pointless shattering,” added Purple.

White clasped her hands as if in prayer. “A better way of life. A feasible path to the peace you yourself have sought to broker.”

“I know the Prescient’s Design,” Sapphire answered. Frost scribed intricate patterns into the moist sand at her feet. “I know it intimately. That’s why I know I can’t take part in it. It’s over. Go back to Homeworld.” A shiver passed through her. “Please.”

“We remain resolute,” Purple insisted. “Even in the face of your shocking revelation about the Prescient.”

Sapphire hung her head, slumped her shoulders and heaved a sigh. “Fine. I AM the Prescient.”

The four Homeworlders shared a dull gasp.

“The Design was my plan,” Sapphire continued. “I imagined perfect order, down to fractal infinity. The vast potentiality of Gemkind, reduced to a single, beautiful equation. A design for an order of Sapphires to follow, each looking where the other didn’t, each going where they were meant to, acting on foresight until a perfect future came into focus on the horizon.” She tensed up. “But it’s not possible. I know that now.”

Orange took a step forward. “Again you refuse.”

The other three joined her. “Because of her,” said Green.

White’s chilling stare could be felt even through her obscuring bangs. “You are transparent. I see your intent. You would trade the work of five millennia, and the future of our race, for your illogical attachment to one. Worthless. Ruby!”

A choked whimper rang out in the icy silence that followed those words. Pebbles clattered and a figure skidded down from atop the temple statue’s half-buried hand. The surf sizzled from her frantic, burning-hot gait.

Sapphire turned and reached out after the fleeing Gem. “Ruby! WAIT! Don’t go! You don’t understand!” She streaked off after her, quick enough to kick up a backblast of sand and seawater.

The other four Sapphires followed along more slowly, with the calm certainty of the tides.

Sapphire caught up with her beloved on the stretch of beach halfway between the temple and the town. “Ruby…!”

Ruby stopped with a fiery skid that sent splinters of fresh obsidian tinkling into the surf. She turned and faced Sapphire with a face wreathed in steam from boiling tears.

“S-Sapphire,” she squeaked. “Is it really true? Is it all my fault?” She stumbled, bending forward to squeeze her knees and brace herself. “All those shattered Gems. The Cluster… y-you could have changed Homeworld. You could have prevented everything!” She dropped down to all fours. Finally, her tears fell to the sand before they could evaporate. “But instead… you met me.”

Sapphire turned away and bit her curled index finger until she tasted spilling light and freezing-cold tears. The single thread of possibility wavered before her, setting her course. Choice was an illusion. She had to play her part.

“It’s true.” She kept her back turned. The words wouldn’t come if she looked at her. “The moment you saved me, the moment we fused, I knew that the Prescient was gone forever.”

Ruby sobbed and clawed at the sand. Her searing fingertips left glowing, molten channels. “You can’t do this,” she pleaded. “You have to go with them! Steven was right, our work will never be done — but you can fix Gemkind once and for all! Fix everyone, even the Diamonds!” She pulled back into an upright kneel. “Please! Sapphire, you can’t do this. Not for me. I’m not worth it! It’s crazy!” She put her hands to her head and shrieked at the open, sunny sky: “IT’S CRAZY!”

Sapphire hugged herself tight, took a frosty breath and then finally turned to face Ruby’s anguish. The sight felt like a chisel-blow to her gemstone. “Ruby … EVERYTHING I do … everything I am … it’s ALL for you. And you have to believe me — there are no deaths on your hands.”

Ruby reached out with both hands, pleading to her other half. “How…? I ruined everything! How can you say that? I don’t understand!”

The Homeworlders caught up, walking shoulder to shoulder in lockstep.

Sapphire turned to face them. “No, you don’t.” She raised her fists, and dense spikes of blue ice studded her knuckles. “But you will.”

“Sapphire…!” Ruby leaped to her feet and called forth a fighting gauntlet.

“NO.” Sapphire pointed at Ruby. “You stay right there. You watch. And no matter what, no … matter … what, you don’t interfere until it’s over.”

The Homeworlders summoned their weapons. Ruby gritted her teeth. “But there are FOUR of them! And it’s been so long since you -”

“Promise me, Ruby!” The cold calm slipped, and emotion soaked Sapphire’s pleading words like a rushing river under broken ice. Like the tears wetting her face. She held up her hand, showing her ice-blue wedding band. “If this means _anything_ to you, promise me.”

Ruby sat on the sand and let her gauntlet vanish. She looked down at her own crimson ring. “I ... I promise.”

Sapphire turned her focus to the coming quartet. She once more raised her hands and settled into a light, ready combat stance.

“You persist in your delusion,” Green said. Throwing stars gleamed between her fingers.

“You refuse to go to Homeworld without the Ruby, and you have confessed her presence spoils the Design.” Orange swung her scythe back and forth to underline the points.

Purple raised a chakram in either hand. “Fate brought us here to liberate you, Prescient.”

White pointed her simple, unadorned sword at the trembling Gem on the sand. “Once we shatter the Ruby, Homeworld’s apotheosis can begin for true.”

Sapphire smoothed back her bangs and exposed her glaring, tear-glossed eye. “Final warning. I’m giving you one chance to turn around and fly that Planchette back to Homeworld.”

All four Gems spoke as one: _“We respectfully decline.”_

They charged.

Sapphire bellowed a battlecry and swung her hands at the attackers. Dozens of obelisks of jagged seawater ice surged out of the surf and disrupted the charge with cages, barriers and blocking terrain. The Gems made their way past the obstacles at different rates; she was ready for the first.

Sapphire lunged to one side and dodged a flurry of shuriken from Green, some of which came close enough to tear the bottom edge of her dress. She dipped a forearm into the sea and pulled it back now bearing a shield of solid ice. After catching six more stars in its surface, she plowed into Green and pinned her against one of the ice pillars. The caught stars stabbed their owner a half-dozen times. The Gem frowned slightly from the pain. “I am defeated-” Her own poofing cut her off.

Sapphire crouched and reached out to try and bubble the fallen gemstone, but a swing from Orange’s scythe forced her to leap back.

“Clarity pierces the illusion of choice!” Orange shouted, without a trace more emotion despite the volume. “You join us. You become the Prescient once more! I have seen it! Our objectives align! The logic is inescapable!” She stomped forward and swung the scythe in wide, reaping strikes.

Sapphire parried with ice-blocks again and again while slowly evading in a spiral pattern. The cracked and broken ice chunks formed crude stairs around the Homeworlder, and Sapphire swiftly climbed them and then dived on her belly to slide closer still. She pulled liquid nitrogen out of the air and then seized Orange’s slender throat with her dripping, steaming fingers. As the Gem’s body tried to compensate for the wild temperature variance, Sapphire unleashed a spike-knuckled uppercut with her free hand.

Orange’s flash-frozen neck snapped like an icicle. She poofed as her head sailed free.

Sapphire didn’t even try for bubbling this time — Purple’s razored rings sawed through ice and tore up waves as they streaked toward her. She dodged once again, but every throw of the boomeranging chakrams came closer and closer to hitting.

She brought up a thick ice gauntlet that was split immediately, the impact sending her sliding backward. When the broken ice crumbled her left opera glove was split open into white rags. The Gem-flesh beneath wept sparkles of liquid light from a dotted-line slash.

“Your actions are utterly incongruous,” Purple said flatly. “The costs of protecting this Ruby outweigh the benefits by orders of magnitude.”

Sapphire narrowed her eye. “The fact you believe that only emphasizes the depth of your confusion.”

The Homeworlder drew back and then swung both arms forward to send the two chakrams screaming forward at the same time.

Faster than any move she’d unleashed yet, Sapphire called up a diagonal shaft of ice that speared both rings through their empty middles. Sapphire snapped the thing off at the base and then swung it around like a massive, ring-banded club. The impact caught purple in the side, and the blast of her poofing echoed the deafening crack of the blow.

As Sapphire turned to face her final assailant, White was already directly behind her. The Homeworlder gave a simple underhand thrust, and buried her shortsword in Sapphire’s stomach.

_“SAPPHIRE!”_ Ruby’s scream brought explosive geysers bursting up from the sand around her. She clenched her jaw, eyes wide, pupils pinpricks, as what might be her last promise to her beloved kept her locked to the spot.

“Pattern disruption is most unpleasant,” White observed as she pushed the blade deeper. “The dissonance can cause integrity degradation. Internal errors. The logical reaction is pattern dissolution and reconstitution.” White pushed again. The sword’s hilt touched Sapphire’s light-soaked dress. “... Why do you delay the inevitable?”

Sapphire coughed up sparkles, but then she smiled. “You’re one of White Diamond’s own personal strategists, and you still don’t get it,” she rasped. “Logic, rationalism, common sense … THOSE are the illusions.”

White leaned closer still, and her bangs parted slightly to show her wide, milky-pale eye. “What?”

“The numbers only work in a total vacuum. All of us, Gems and organics, commoners and Diamonds, every thinking being in the universe … we are ultimately driven by our emotions. By DESIRE. And what we long for, what we dream of … what we LOVE …” She spared a sidelong glance at Ruby. “... you could never chart it, never predict it, never solve it, not if you calculated until the heat-death of the cosmos.”

“LIAR!” White’s chalky face greyed in a furious flush. Her mouth creased in a snarl, and she twisted the sword.

Sapphire cried out, and her form flickered and seethed with agony-static before solidifying again. Her body was slowly losing colour and opacity as more and more motes of coherent light spilled. She took a few short, urgent gasps, swallowed hard, and then spoke on. “The Design isn’t failing now, White. It was never possible in the first place. Our predictions can detect meteor showers and mechanical failures and lost battles, but that’s because the variables are quantifiable. And you can’t measure love. You can't calculate passion. You can’t plan madness. I didn’t see Pink’s departure. I didn’t see Ruby and I coming together. I didn’t see Spinel’s return. Love, despair, insanity … they are inherently, intrinsically irrational, and they are everywhere.” She coughed again. “The Design never could have worked.”

“Im… impossible!” White barked. Tears welled up in her eye. “We saw progress! Results! Before the war, reports indicated satisfaction and stability were more than two standard deviations above projected-”

Sapphire gave a weary, knowing, light-spattered smile. “Did it EVER occur to you that Gems were simply lying, because the punishment for unhappiness or instability could be rejuvenation, exile, or even shattering? Did you consider the possibility that millennia of stress and misery go as far to explain the weakening of the empire as any other variable does?” She leaned in even closer, and put a hand on White’s shoulder to keep herself from collapsing. Under her torn, ragged dress, her thin legs wobbled. “White, did you ever even stop and check if YOU were happy?”

White’s bottom lip quivered. “I… I serve the Diamonds. I s-serve Homeworld. My performance is without flaw. Beyond reproach! My predictions … my predictions…” She trembled, and her grip on the sword’s handle slackened. “They’re WRONG!” She put her light-soaked hands to her face and bawled. “Wh-Why won’t they do as they’re MEANT to? Gems keep rebelling! Failing! Fleeing! FUSING! None of it makes sense! At first I thought it was because I was a weak Era Two Gem, but it’s them! They’re all going CRAZY! And I have to be perfect, all the time, I have to act like I know what they’ll do, even though every day I have less and less idea!” She dropped her stained hands and looked down at them through a veil of tears. “Of COURSE I’m not happy! But the Design was supposed to change that! It was our only h-hope …”

Sapphire put her other hand to White’s cheek and gently brushed away the tears with her thumb. She shook her head. “That’s not true. That chaos you saw, that craziness … all those decisions you couldn’t fathom. THOSE are Homeworld’s only hope. If you want to save Gemkind, stop trying to control it… and start trying to make sure that the greatest part of that raging storm of unpredictable, beautiful irrationality is-” Her endurance finally failed her. She poofed in a thinner, quieter blast than usual, and her gemstone fell to the sand wreathed in crackles of azure energy.

White stooped to pick up the stone and cradled it in both hands. “ … Love.”

With the battle done, Ruby finally stepped out of her puddle of anguished molten glass and approached the Homeworlder. She reached out her ring-wearing hand and gave the sternest glare any Ruby — any Gem — had ever turned toward the aristocrat.

White handed Sapphire over and made a feeble effort to smooth her dress. She cleared her throat. “You. The Ruby. There will be a delay before the others can reconstitute. In the meantime, you will divulge all strategically relevant data you have about … about l-love.”

“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen,” Ruby muttered darkly. Slowly, though, her scowl softened. “... But if you pick up your pals and behave yourself, I’ll tell you some great love stories.”

• • • •

As the day and the evening wore on, Ruby sat on a log by a fresh campfire on the beach, and shared her tales. One by one the Homeworld Sapphires reformed, and the audience grew.

The Sapphires gasped and cheered and gave blushing, scandalized stares at all the appropriate moments, even when they’d already gotten too excited and finished sentences before Ruby could.

The others eventually joined them, and Pearl, Steven and Connie added stories of their own, while Amethyst provided colour commentary, sound effects, and occasionally mimed retching.

Finally, under a vast curtain of stars around one of which orbited Homeworld, Sapphire remade herself and appeared, pale and worn and woozy as a marathon runner. Ruby seized her in a crushing embrace, anyway.

“I really dunno if there’s such a thing as living happily ever after,” Ruby told the watching quartet, “but we’re living, and loving, and we aren’t goin’ anywhere.” She dipped Sapphire back and planted a fever-hot kiss on her lips that lingered on and on and on.

“Oh, my,” said Green, and put a gloved hand over her mouth.

“Fascinating,” agreed Orange.

Ruby and Sapphire glowed and flowed and fused once more, and Garnet stood towering over their guests. She heaved a satisfied sigh, took off her glossy shades, and looked up and out of reality with her three different coloured eyes. She smiled, and softly said:

**“THE END.”**

**☆**

**Author's Note:**

> This work was inspired by a prompt from the [Fake Steven Universe Episodes](https://fakesuepisodes.tumblr.com/post/161428920542/order-of-the-sapphire-in-a-hidden-meeting-place-on) blog


End file.
